Low doses of ionizing radiation can prevent radiation-induced colonic epithelial hyporesponsiveness to muscarinic agonists

PURPOSE: Colonic epithelium hyporesponsiveness to different secretagogues occurs after exposure to ionizing radiation, increasing susceptibility to bacterial translocation and intraluminal toxins. Growing evidence suggests that the biological effects of radiation might be hormetic in nature. We investigated if exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation (LDR) can prevent colon hyposecretion due to subsequent larger doses. METHODS: Rats were …